The girls have swim, piano, and dance classes all on the same day, so I’m very strategic on how I plan out that day to make sure to complete all our lessons. Thus, I was just lying in bed that particular afternoon trying to catch my breathe from everything. In addition, I sprained my left knee, so that’s added an extra layer of frustration (and I was lying down trying to rest it). Well, my little brigade comes in, hops on my bed and starts getting in my face about this or that. My moments of silence and staring at the ceiling was interrupted by these little girls of mine.

I had one grab my camera, which wasn’t too far, and they started hamming it up when I started taking pictures of them above me. I love these girls so much, even though they probably can’t tell when I’m super frustrated and yelling. Ben came home and had plans to work on the front yard (our front yard is embarrassingly unkempt), so I decided I would take the girls out on a girls dinner date. They were really giddy about that idea, so off we went.

I let them choose the music for our drive, and of course, it was the Frozen soundtrack. We belted tunes together at the top of our lungs and totally let it go. We had dinner, and even bought dessert, and just chitchatted it up. My phone stayed in my purse. I don’t text or check anything on our special dates, I don’t even whip it out to snap a picture. It takes restraint though, I love taking pictures and capturing a moment with it (as proof above), but sometimes it’s good to just let things be.

I can’t wait for the weekend!

Funny Face Wooden Blocks
inspired by these facemaker wooden blocks by miller goodman

Supplies:
25 wooden blocks
Paint in various colors
Paintbrushes
Painter’s tape
Pencil

Directions:
First, I drew out a 5×5 grid on paper. On the grid, I drew the face I wanted to create. Next, I drew that face on the blocks, following the shapes I drew on the grid. After the shapes were drawn on the blocks, I painted each piece. Each face was covered in two layers of paint. I allowed that face to dry completely before moving onto the next face.

For my second face, I drew that out on the grid again, transferred my drawing onto the blocks, and then painted the face. In all, I created 6 different faces using the same 25 blocks.

Notes: I used painter’s tape to help with some straight edges for the eyes and nose. I wasn’t going for perfection, so I didn’t always tape off the block edges when painting. Though if you want perfect painted edges, use the painter’s tape.

My girls love playing with blocks, so I thought this set would be fun to have displayed on the coffee table. Sure enough, since it’s been out, it’s been played with everyday. They’ve mixed and matched some funny faces, and even used it to play with their My Little Ponies. It’s inspired by this block set, but I had some blocks in my craft stash, so I figured we could make our own. If you package it up all cute, it would make a cool handmade gift.

I’ve always love this Miller Goodman set too, this stack and scare set is adorable, and I think this architectural set is interesting. These magnetic wood blocks are kind of cool and I’m thinking Brave might like it for Christmas. The girls are making their Christmas wish lists already, so that’s why I have Christmas gifts on my brain. Have you started Christmas shopping already?

It was over 100 degrees again this past weekend (ugh!) and we went to my cousin’s wedding. Thankfully, the wedding was in the afternoon and there were lots of trees around, so it didn’t feel as hot as it was. We took care of house things in the morning, then about an hour before we’re supposed to leave, I’m yelling, “Everyone get dress!” It’s quite a chaotic scene when we all have to get dressed to go somewhere. If there’s nowhere to go, the girls stay in pajamas all day long, except Soul, she sleeps in a skirt or dress every night.

Soul has been wearing that “party dress” of hers since Friday night. She slept in it and wore it again all day Saturday. She said she wanted to wear it to the wedding, and whatever, I let her wear it. You can’t tell, but she’s wearing a denim skirt under it too. It’s her newest thing to wear two skirts. That girl always has a thing. Brave is Nancy Drew mixed with Peter Parker, and True wore Birks (I wasn’t paying attention when she chose her footwear). Glow’s the only I dressed myself. The wedding was country/cowboy themed (the bride is from Texas), so Ben just wore a Canadian tuxedo. It was not formal, and Ben was happy to be able to wear jeans. I wore a shift dress from Old Navy and my favorite boots.

The wedding venue also had a mini orchard, so Ben made a beeline to check that out as soon as the ceremony was over. I headed into the greenhouse because all the pretty plants caught my eye. It was such a fun evening out together celebrating my cousin’s marriage and being able to catch up with family that we don’t see too often.

Our weekend was filled with lots of family and friend time. We didn’t get home until 10pm on Saturday and Sunday night. That’s pretty wild for us!

Korean Spicy Stew. I used a lean pork instead of chicken like the recipe called for. It was good, and the girls liked it, but Ben didn’t. I think I know now that my husband doesn’t like stews. He said it reminded him too much of American food. HA! Guess I won’t be cooking that dish again.

Week of 8/6 – 8/10
Monday: Cheese & Wine Night with some friends
Tuesday: Homemade Pizza
Wednesday: Spaghetti & Meatballs
Thursday: Dinner with friends
Friday: Ceviche Night

I haven’t cooked a fish dish in awhile, and my girls love salmon, so I will definitely have to put that in the menu soon.

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

Oh man. Thankful things got done. This week was crazy!

I want to make a sign like this.

My mom is cute. She made an Instagram account to post this birthday video for my sister she did with her co-workers.

Excited for Jenny from Mikasa Su Casa and her hunt for a studio space.

Part of my busy week was helping my friend propose to my other friend. Read the proposal story here.

I’ve been getting tons of spam comments lately. I need to figure out how to prevent it.

How cute is this unicorn headband?! I’m sure the girls would have fun making their own.

The book, Little Fixes, by blogger Disney Powless looks like a very helpful manual in extending the life of children’s clothes.

I want to get this block set for our coffee table. Our girls loves playing with blocks and I think this one would be interesting.

The temperatures went back up to the 100’s this week, so while there a bunch of fall festivals and pumpkin patches popping up, it still doesn’t feel like fall. Oh well.

If your local, or visiting Southern California, spend an afternoon apple picking in small town, Julian, about an hour east of San Diego, and two hours south of Riverside. There are plenty of apple orchards for apple picking, but you will want to make sure and check their sites online or call ahead because some might already be out of apples and closed for the season. We went to Volcan Valley Apple Farm because they are an organic apple farm and their apple trees are all trellised, so Ben wanted to check that out. They charge $10 for a 5lb. bag.

Once the girls set foot in the orchard, they just wanted to take off running. We found an aisle that was free from other pickers and we let them run wild. Soul loved it the most and kept running up and down the aisles. The workers at the farm told us we were free to eat apples as we pick, and boy we made sure to get our fill. I think each of us ate about 4 apples! The kids were loving that so much. You can see True above doing her best impression of Apple Jack (one of the My Little Ponies). The varieties found at this particular orchid were Pippin, Empire, Jonathan, and Golden Delicious. They had other varieties (Gravensteins) that weren’t available yet, but they should be now, and some other varieties (Gala and Fuji) were already done for the season.

We picked a lot of apples. A LOT! Another wonderful thing about this particular apple farm is that since they have dwarf apple trees, there are plenty of low branches for the little ones to pick from. Glow was initially hogging the apple bag, but once it got too heavy for her to carry, she gladly passed it off to us. People were in awe of how many apples we picked! I think we came home with 15 lbs. We put them in the fridge and they have all kept pretty well. It’s been two weeks, and they all still taste absolutely delicious.

After we went apple picking, we went into town and strolled Main Street for a bit. I really wanted to go to the Julian Pie Company because of the reviews on yelp, but they had already closed for the day. I read that their cinnamon ice cream is amazing, so we may have to make another trip back one day. We did end up getting a slice of apple crumb pie from Mom’s Pies (they had pretty good reviews on yelp too), with a side of cinnamon ice cream. Here’s a tip, the pie shops on Main Street have really long lines, but if you go to the ones on the way out of town, you’ll likely avoid the lines.

I would have loved to check out more of the historical sites in Julian, but we were running out of time. This means we will just have to go back again someday.